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Social Business Initiatives: Get Caught Mapping

The real value of social business initiatives lies in making connections among people, information, and operations. Mapping and mastering these social network connections early can help companies avoid common pitfalls that plague many social business projects.

If social business initiatives were rockets, most would never deliver their payload. In fact, many would never make it farther than the test lab.

Scores of companies are embracing social business. In a recently published report,Social Business: What are Companies Really Doing?, researchers from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and Deloitte LLP found that a majority of survey respondents (54 percent) said social business was important to their companies today. Additionally, 86 percent said that social business would be important to their companies in three years.

Yet, a sizable number of social business initiatives are likely to fail. Companies often get stuck in one of the early stages of adoption, and fail to progress to the point where their strategies, people, processes, and technologies coalesce into an intentional, fruitful social business project.

Why? Because during the planning stages, too many organizations focus on trying the latest tool or technology while overlooking the cornerstone of any social business initiative: the social network itself. Thefundamental value of social business investments and capabilities lies, after all, in identifying and expanding connections among people, information, and operations.

To avoid this trap, companies can take a different approach—first identifying and mapping existing networks of connections and then crafting social strategies and business processes to take advantage of them. Creating such a complex map can be challenging—some companies hire highly trained specialists to help—but it yields valuable insights that can inform social business decisions and improve the likelihood of achieving results.

Creating Social Network Maps

In a business context, “social network” often refers to various technologies that have given rise to the current social business trend. Yet mathematical sociologists—whose expertise lies in, among other areas, applying mathematical rigor to the study of social networks—may offer a more precise definition. Social networks, they will tell you in mathematical terms, are “directed graphs” of the interconnections among people, assets and processes with the potential to influence a business outcome.

Some effective companies have engaged mathematical sociologists to create detailed maps of the social networks at work in their business domains. By applying the insight gleaned from such maps, companies can establish realistic social business plans, and then work toward achieving specific business objectives.

To create an effective social network map, companies should ask:

Who within the network will make decisions?

Who will influence the outcomes?

Which individuals will act as connectors or brokers during adoption and how do they interact?

What information assets are involved?

Next, they should identify current business processes that will be affected by the social business initiative and, equally as important, how the connections identified in the social network operate within these processes.

Familiar Adoption Patterns

Companies in various sectors are at different stages in their adoption of social business. According to the MIT/Deloitte study, two sectors—Media and Technology—lead the pack in adopting social business solutions. Roughly 75 percent of media managers and 66 percent of technology industry managers surveyed reported that social software is important or somewhat important to their companies today. (In contrast, only 7.1 percent of managers in the Energy & Utilities sectors said that social software was important today.)

No matter their sector or size, companies pursuing social business solutions typically follow the same three-stage process:

The Aspirational Stage: Companies at this beginning stage “aspire” to be a social business. They have in mind neither a specific business outcome nor a project plan for achieving it. They believe that a particular technology can help the company do something better, faster or cheaper. Companies should strive to move beyond this stage as quickly as possible.

The Experimental Stage: Companies at this stage of adoption now have a business objective and a plan. They know what they want to achieve, but are not quite sure how long or how much money it is going to take to reach their goal. The experimental stage is a good place to start laying the groundwork for social business initiatives. Once again, however, companies shouldn’t linger here. They should move quickly to transition to the third and final stage.

The Intentional Stage: Companies know their business objectives. They have leaders with relevant experience and examples of how other companies leveraged social business to achieve specific business goals. They are more intentional about their investments, and can create project plans, fund them, and schedule projects in such a way that there is a reasonable probability of achieving their goals.

We return now to those social business initiatives that fail. Too many companies get mired in the aspirational stage. Fewer still make it to the intentional stage.

A number of factors can impede progress at each stage. First, there is currently a shortage of case studies and established practices that can serve as a roadmap for early adopters. Additionally, setbacks in the aspirational or experimental stages can sometimes undermine executive support, causing projects to lose momentum. Moreover, social tools are evolving quickly, and the social technology landscape becomes more diverse every day. Staying the course with a sound strategy and implementation plan can be challenging when the tools are evolving so rapidly.

Commencing Countdown

By achieving greater insight into enterprise social networks early in the planning process, companies can approach their social business initiatives with greater clarity and purpose. This approach has the potential to not only accelerate the adoption and maturation of social business initiatives, but also help to lower risk and improve ROI.

The MIT/Deloitte study reveals that while many are taking a wait-and-see approach to the social business trend, roughly 70 percent of CEOs and CIOs surveyed believe that social software will be important to their organizations in three years.

Social business is a field in which early adopters may benefit. While the technologies may still be evolving rapidly, they are not mysterious, nor are they merely toys for 16-year-olds. These tools are a type of innovation that can—when adopted effectively—provide substantial value.

Currently, you have a rare opportunity to say “social business is ________.” How will you fill in this blank? Perhaps “social human resources,” or “social supply chain.” Maybe even “social finance.”

Now is the time to determine what social business can be for your company.

About Deloitte Insights

Deloitte Insights for CIOs couples broad business insights with deep technical knowledge to help executives drive business and technology strategy, support business transformation, and enhance growth and productivity. Through fact-based research, technology perspectives and analyses, case studies and more, Deloitte Insights for CIOs informs the essential conversations in global, technology-led organizations. Learn more.

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